The wilderness of people… That is, a desert in which there are no people.
20:36. As I pleaded against your fathers in the desert of the land of Egypt; even so will I judge you, saith the Lord God.
20:37. And I will make you subject to my sceptre, and will bring you into the bands of the covenant.
20:38. And I will pick out from among you the transgressors, and the wicked, and will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the Lord.
20:39. And as for you, O house of Israel: thus saith the Lord God: Walk ye every one after your idols, and serve them. But if in this also you hear me not, but defile my holy name any more with your gifts, and with your idols;
Walk ye every one, etc… It is not an allowance, much less a commandment to serve idols; but a figure of speech, by which God would have them to understand that if they would walk after their idols, they must not pretend to serve him at the same time: for that he would by no means suffer such a mixture of worship.
20:40. In my holy mountain, in the high mountain of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel serve me; all of them I say, in the land in which they shall please me, and there will I require your firstfruits, and the chief of your tithes with all your sanctifications.
In my holy mountain, etc… The foregoing verse, to make the sense complete, must be understood so as to condemn and reject that mixture of worship which the Jews then followed. In this verse, God promises to the true Israelites, especially to those of the Christian church, that they shall serve him in another manner, in his holy mountain, the spiritual Sion: and shall by accepted of by him.
20:41. I will accept of you for an odour of sweetness, when I shall have brought you out from the people, and shall have gathered you out of the lands into which you are scattered, and I will be sanctified in you in the sight of the nations.
20:42. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have brought you into the land of Israel, into the land for which I lifted up my hand to give it to your fathers.